English Language Institute

Donald Smith has over 30 years of experience teaching various Englishes in Canada, the U.S., and overseas.  Don is highly rated by his students for his challenging and widely literate courses, which are delivered in a supportive environment where students’ individual perspectives and strengths are acknowledged and celebrated. Don believes in the power of confidence, humor, and resilience to help international students achieve their goals.

In the U.S. and Canada, Don has taught English composition to first and third-year undergraduates. He has also taught poetry and fiction writing, literature, and life writing to adult learners.  At York, he co-revised and launched a program on Teaching in English for non-native English-speaking graduate student TAs and built a cross-Institute program of experiential encounters with University Life for pre-university EAP learners.

As founding developer/coordinator of the Graduate Studies Preparation program, Don takes a personal interest in participants’ success, helping them engage in real-life career thinking and leveraging his own university contacts in both the U.S. and Canada to help them research and apply to graduate programs that will suit them professionally and financially.

As an undergraduate, Don studied Music (Vocal Performance), Theatre Lighting and Set Design, Anthropology, and Linguistics, before ultimately taking his BA in English Literature.  He has worked as a stagehand at a university theatre and an editor at a university press.  He has an MFA in Writing from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a PhD in English from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Juanita Huan Zhou (M.A., B.A.) has a teaching experience of thirty years in ESL, EFL, film studies, and public speaking. She has taught in China, Singapore, US, and Canada and has presented at local, national, and international conferences such as TESL Toronto, TESL Canada, TESOL, Asia TEFL, CLESOL, and LTAC (the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada). She has published books and journal articles in Chinese and in English and has many film translation credits under her belt.

During her twenty-year tenure at the York University English Language Institute, Juanita has taught in the Academic Program, Destination York, Pre-Destination York, and Fast Track, the levels spanning from true beginners to low advanced. Her professional interest in course development, test design, rubrics development, and curriculum revision is most evident in the several projects in curriculum revision at the Institute she has carried out and the instrumental role she has played in the development of exit tests and writing rubrics for various levels.

The seminars she has designed and offered at the Institute are also multifaceted, including Spelling, Improving Accuracy in Writing, Pronunciation, the Art of Conversation, Just for Laughs, How to Watch a Movie, and English Through Film Adaptation Across Cultures. Juanita enjoys working with highly-motivated, conscientious, and respectful students who endeavour to broaden their horizon by taking on the challenge of learning a new language.

Yuliya Miakisheva is a passionate language educator who has been committed to providing her students with learner-centered educational opportunities in North America and overseas for over 25 years.For the past 20 years, Yuliya has been teaching English for Academic and Professional purposes at York University. There, she has created and facilitated face-to-face and blended university preparation courses for international undergraduate students. She has also designed and delivered graduate preparation interdisciplinary courses for internationally trained legal, business, and medical professionals.In addition to her teaching experience, Yuliya worked as a program coordinator for graduate preparation and professional programs, where she cultivated language and professional skills in students to be applied in their future careers.In her work, Yuliya has been exploring innovative solutions in higher education and their application in language teaching through individual and team projects and professional development opportunities. Yuliya regularly presents at professional conferences, locally and internationally, and has a number of professional publications.